Consecutive Interpreting Skills Guided By Skopos Theory

Research on interpreting skills was the focus at the preliminary stage of China’s interpreting research. Even today there are still numerous articles on this topic. But we notice that all such researches on it are conducted from linguistic perspective, for instance, how to deal with the interpreting difficulties caused by the language differences between the source language and the target language. However, there are much extra-linguistic factors affecting the interpreter’s choice of interpreting skills. In what way such extra-linguistic factors effect interpreting skills? Skopos theory may provide us with some inspirations.Skopos theory is an approach to translation proposed in the late1970s and early1980s by Hans Vermeer and Katharina Reiss. This approach reflects a general shift from predominantly linguistic and rather formal translation theories to a more functionally and socio-culturally oriented concept of translation. Vermeer and Reiss abstract from phenomena specific to individual cultures and languages an account of general factors determining the translation process. Among the general factors, skopos/function of the target text is dominant. And skopos is essentially determined by the communicative needs and expectations of the target-text receiver. This is because according to Skopos theory, translation (interpreting included) is not only a process of language transfer, but also an interaction in which the participants interacts with each other to fulfill the intended function of the target-text.We intend to take Skopos theory as our theoretic approach to analyze the interpreting skills in Premier Wen Jiabao’s Press Conference Interpreting (PCI). To be specific, the analysis will be performed according to the significant roles that both the function and the receiver of press conference interpreting are playing in the interpreting process. There are mainly two stages in interpreting, i.e. comprehension and production. Our analysis will focus on the two stages with more emphasis on the stage of comprehension. At last, we conclude that the interpreting skills used in Premier Wen Jiabao’s Press Conference Interpreting (PCI) may include the following:conversion, addition, chunking, categorization, cohesive device, reformulation, equivalence and explanation, etc. We also realize that the effect of the function and the target-text receiver on the interpreting is much more obvious at the stage of production.